US News Global University Ranking: North America in the Top 100

[JManc]

Originally Posted by IrishIllini

DFW (Texas in general) buys a lot of jobs with taxpayer money. Nearly all of the growth in DFW is from outside companies lured to the state/area by very generous incentives packages. Uber got $30M+ to expand in Dallas and $0 from SF or Chicago.

That approach works until it doesn't. At some point, taxes go way up or the incentives packages end, but likely both. In the meantime, Oklahoma and Arkansas are lurking in the shadows just biding their time.

DFW, I think, has become big enough with a big/ educated talent pool to draw from to eventually where if the incentives were to taper off, jobs and industries would still see value doing business there and as well as places like Austin and Houston. Texas opens up a lot of opportunities for employers; big diverse metro areas, business friendly (even without the incentives) and growing. Houston is throwing a lot of money at tech and biotech incubators which has been successful out west. Austin and I'm sure Dallas has their own plans as well.

OK and AR are just not even on the same level though OK does have a few big companies, mainly oil and gas.

[dc_denizen]

the idea that the National University of Singapore or Nanyang technical university is in the same league as Princeton is laughable.

[Manitopiaaa]

Originally Posted by SIGSEGV

Its lack of top-tier universities will lead to brain drain in the long term though, as kids go away for college and won't always come back.

Or the existing schools build their endowments and become more prestigious. I had always considered the University of Texas at Dallas as the red-headed step child of the Austin campus.

So I was surprised to see it having the 33rd best MBA in the country: https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate...location=Texas

Southern Methodist University is also now #41. Texas Christian is #56. None of those would have been possible without the donation dollars that come with being in a metro of 8 million.

Top-tier universities don't appear out of thin air, often they nudge upwards through decades.

[Manitopiaaa]

Originally Posted by SIGSEGV

Well, Johns Hopkins is also a top physics / aerospace program. They have excellent cosmologists and the Applied Physics Lab which builds a lot for NASA. No doubt they are helped by proximity to NASA Goddard and DC.

Also due to their proximity to D.C., they have one of the top international relations and policy schools as well: SAIS

[Manitopiaaa]

Originally Posted by DCReid

I don't perceive Michigan as being 'dinged' for prestige. Possibly what lessens its prestige is it is known more for its sports than its academics. And perhaps the location - near a big city but not considered as integrated with it (some may consider that good, but Detroit was once as dynamic as Silicon Valley in the early days of the auto industry).

My understanding is that Michigan is holistically well-rounded but doesn't truly dominate any sector. Which gets to the question: is it better to be the 10th best school in 3 fields, or best in 1?

[JManc]

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

the idea that the National University of Singapore or Nanyang technical university is in the same league as Princeton is laughable.

Not sure why you would think that. These schools might not have the notoriety/ prestige of an Ivy League or massive endowments but I bet their academic rigor is at least on par.

[dc_denizen]

I attended NuS for a semester . It was fine , rigor was average , the professors were mostly crap , and the student body was hard working , but not stellar by any means .

At Princeton you could take a physics class with this guy

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Witten

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

I attended NuS for a semester . It was fine , rigor was average , the professors were mostly crap , and the student body was hard working , but not stellar by any means .

At Princeton you could take a physics class with this guy

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Witten

Exactly. American school faculties are packed with Nobel lauriates, many of them immigrants and quite a few of whom teach seminars that upper class undergrads can take (they usually don't teach introductory courses). Only a few top European schools like "Oxbridge" come anywhere close.

And the need for the American style in higher education outside the US is demonstrated by the success of the overseas campuses of those American schools. Johns Hopkins, for example, has campuses in China (Beijing) and in Bologna, Italy. Many other schools also have campuses mainly in Asia and some in Europe.

[SIGSEGV]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

they usually don't teach introductory courses

Stanford was having Doug Osheroff and Lenny Susskind (not a Nobel Prize winner, but pretty well-known) teaching Freshman physics. They weren't great at it , but I guess it makes a nice selling point. I did take a small seminar class with Bob Laughlin my senior year, and having a recommendation from a Nobel Laureate probably helped my grad school applications a bit.

[JManc]

Nobel Laureates, actors and so on are part of the prestige that comes with being a high profile university. They do not make up the bulk of the faculty of an institution and are usually funded by an special endowment of some kind.

I went to a ho-hum state college for my undergrad and had this one history professor who was a walking encyclopedia on everything and anything WW2. He didn't have the Ivy league pedigree or was a famous historian but this guy was phenomenal

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by DCReid

I don't perceive Michigan as being 'dinged' for prestige. Possibly what lessens its prestige is it is known more for its sports than its academics. And perhaps the location - near a big city but not considered as integrated with it (some may consider that good, but Detroit was once as dynamic as Silicon Valley in the early days of the auto industry).

Stanford has fairly good sports reputation. Jim Harbaugh, the current coach of Michigan's football team, is Stanford's former coach. But that might be a bad example, lol.

[SIGSEGV]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Stanford has fairly good sports reputation. Jim Harbaugh, the current coach of Michigan's football team, is Stanford's former coach. But that might be a bad example, lol.

Harbaugh had amazing staff (Vic Fangio and David Shaw) who both seem to be doing better than him at the moment. But Harbaugh did go to a Super Bowl so...

And don't forget about Jim Plunkett, John Elway, Andrew Luck, Christian McCaffery, and the Lopez Twins...

[TexasPlaya]

Originally Posted by pj3000

The DFW area feels the least college-y of any major city I've ever lived in, or visited.

There are plenty of schools... SMU, UTA, UTD, UD, TCU, UNT, TWU... it's just that none seem to have much of a presence in the overall culture. They all seem to be quite separated from the city environment. Or maybe it's just that the area is such a sprawling expanse with little cohesion.

I can see that. Texas is a two college state, UT Longhorns or Texas A&M Aggies so you'd see only those colors and really none from other state schools.

[TexasPlaya]

Originally Posted by Manitopiaaa

Or the existing schools build their endowments and become more prestigious. I had always considered the University of Texas at Dallas as the red-headed step child of the Austin campus.

So I was surprised to see it having the 33rd best MBA in the country: https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate...location=Texas

Southern Methodist University is also now #41. Texas Christian is #56. None of those would have been possible without the donation dollars that come with being in a metro of 8 million.

Top-tier universities don't appear out of thin air, often they nudge upwards through decades.

UTD really has a lot of potential if UT/the state could get around to ensuring each major metro had its own "flagship university". UT could upgrade existing facilities in San Antonio and DFW, TAMU could upgrade the border region, and University of Houston could get a boost from the state.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by TexasPlaya

I can see that. Texas is a two college state, UT Longhorns or Texas A&M Aggies so you'd see only those colors and really none from other state schools.

That's because these two were (up until recently) the only two Tier-1 public universities in Texas and their respective systems were only two with access to the state's Permanent University Fund which is funneled to their flagship institutions. I see do more Texas Tech, Baylor and U of Houston stuff than I used to.

[SIGSEGV]

Originally Posted by TexasPlaya

UTD really has a lot of potential if UT/the state could get around to ensuring each major metro had its own "flagship university". UT could upgrade existing facilities in San Antonio and DFW, TAMU could upgrade the border region, and University of Houston could get a boost from the state.

I guess UT-Arlington probably competes with UT-Dallas to some extent as well, which doesn't help...

[TexasPlaya]

Originally Posted by SIGSEGV

I guess UT-Arlington probably competes with UT-Dallas to some extent as well, which doesn't help...

To some extent but not for the purposes of creating a flagship, as UT-Dallas is a doctorial university that goes under the radar in the state.

[dc_denizen]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

Exactly. American school faculties are packed with Nobel lauriates, many of them immigrants and quite a few of whom teach seminars that upper class undergrads can take (they usually don't teach introductory courses). Only a few top European schools like "Oxbridge" come anywhere close.

And the need for the American style in higher education outside the US is demonstrated by the success of the overseas campuses of those American schools. Johns Hopkins, for example, has campuses in China (Beijing) and in Bologna, Italy. Many other schools also have campuses mainly in Asia and some in Europe.

80% of the undergrad student body at NUS is through Singapore , a country the size of Minnesota . The catchment for these Singaporean universities is much too small ! Compare to tsinghua or Harvard which can draw from an entire major country and (in the car of Princeton or oxford etc )internationally

Thus any list which ranks these schools prominently must be questioned .

Don’t get me wrong , they were fun nice schools. Let’s just say I would have struggled a lot more to keep up with Princeton students than the cohort at NUS